It’s Not about Me

“One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the discussion.  He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’  Jesus replied, ‘The most important commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel!  The Lord our God is the one and only Lord.  And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength’” – Mark 12:28-30 (NLT). 

Why are you here?  What is your purpose for living?  I asked a classroom of High Schoolers these questions just two weeks ago.  An 11^th grade female in the back row loudly said, “Because my mother spread her legs!”  All the students laughed.  Then I asked another classroom of High Schoolers the same question in the next period.  Again a girl said, “Because my mother had sex.”

I was stunned. 

I knew that most people have no clue as to why they are here on planet Earth, or what their purpose for living is, but I had no idea just how base the reactions to my question would be.  After getting each class to look past sex and sexuality (a subject constantly on the minds of most teens today), some gave different answers.  Some said they were here to work a job, others to have fun or play sports.  Several said they had no idea why they were alive or here on planet Earth.

Now I am an incurable optimist.  I tend to see the bright side of things.  But I must admit that the answers of these teens knocked me for a loop.  I didn’t realize just how far from God most of them were.  Sure, there are wonderful exceptions of kids that love God and are pursuing him with all their might.  To these I say, “Praise God!”  But most youth I have encountered (hundreds of them) have absolutely no concept of God or why they have been created and placed on this earth.  In fact, most adults don’t know this either.

In our text (above) Jesus tell us what our purpose for living is.  He tells us why we are here on this Earth.  He tells us what every human should be pursuing with all of his or her might: a love relationship with God.  How do we know this?  We know it because Jesus says the greatest commandment ever given to us by God is to love our Creator with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

You see, when we say that our purpose in life is to work a job, play sports, or have fun we are essentially saying that life is all about us.  It’s about our career, our money, our athleticism, or our entertainment.  But to believe that this is what life is about is basically to set ourselves up as little gods and revolve the universe around our imaginary throne. 

That’s precisely why the command to love God most begins with the statement: “Hear, O Israel!  The Lord our God is the one and only Lord.”  We cannot begin to love God or fulfill our very reason for existence without first realizing who God is.  We must begin loving God by admitting that there is only one God, and we aren’t it!

In other words, it’s not about me.  It’s about him!  The universe does not revolve around me, it revolves around him.  He doesn’t exist for me, I exist for him.  I am to love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But what does this mean?

Well, first, we are to love God with all our heart (Greek: kardia).  This means that our deepest emotions should be experienced in this life through the reality of God.  Music should move us to think about him; nature should make us stand in awe of him; children should remind us of and teach us about him; friends and families and mates should be, in our hearts, wrapped up in God’s existence.  Every emotion we feel in this life – whether generated by experiences with things, animals, circumstances, people or whatever – should be felt with God in mind.  Any feeling we have – no matter how sincere – if it is not a God-loving, God-pleasing feeling, then it is a wrong or misguided feeling.

David loved God with all his heart.  Read the Psalms and you will find David’s every emotion wrapped up in or directed to God.  Whether he was feeling joy, anger, disappointment, discouragement, depression, determination, euphoria or whatever, he felt it all with God in mind.  The Psalms are like his personal diary.  Read them and you will come to know what it means to love God with all your heart.

We are to love God with all our soul (Greek: psyche).  This means that we are to love him with every fiber of our life and existence.  The soul is the life-principle.  It speaks of our very existence or life.  It is the blood in our veins that carries life itself to our bodies.  When we love God with our soul, it means that we would drain our very lives out of our bodies rather than give God up or lose our relationship to him.  It is to worship and value him intensely with all the life that is within us, until our last breath.

Scott Pixler, the evangelism pastor at the First Christian Church in Phoenix, Arizona has a son with Down Syndrome.  Every day his son comes home, puts on Christian music, sits on his bed, raises his hands straight into the air, and praises God with every fiber of his being for three or four hours straight.  He does this seven days a week.  When I heard of this, I marveled!  Here is a young man who loves God with all his soul.  He made me realize just how far I have to go to love God with all my soul.

We are to love God with all our mind (Greek: dianoia).  This means we are to love God with all our understanding.  We are to apply every ounce of mental energy, will power, and cerebral acuity to knowing and appreciating God in all his glory and goodness.  We are to love him to the farthest extent that our understanding of him allows us to love him.  Every sustained thought should be for his glory and every cognition give him praise in some form or fashion.  We are to apply all our intelligence and mental faculties to knowing and loving this God who created us. 

The apostle Paul loved God with all his mind.  He strove to take every thought captive to Christ.  His many writings comprise most of our New Testaments.  He could have been a popular philosopher or well-compensated author, but instead he used his mental acuity to love God by leading others to salvation.  Paul loved God with all his mind.  

We are to love God with all our strength (Greek: ischus).  This means loving God with our physical bodies and all the physical strength we can muster.  Body, bone, sinew, muscle, physical prowess, athletic ability – all of this should be used to love God.  Every molecule of our bodies should be his to command and possess.  Every atom that comprises our physical countenance should cry out with praise to our Creator, and we are to love him with every last ounce of energy and endurance we have.   

My brother, Paul Taylor, taught me what it is to love God with all my strength.  When he and I ministered together in a church in Indiana, he often worked twelve hour days at his factory job.  Then he would drive home, shower and change clothes, and drive thirty minutes back to the church to do evangelism with me.  Then, after 2-3 hours of walking the neighborhoods, he would drive for thirty minutes back to his house and hit the sack only to wake up 4 hours later to do it all over again.  On the nights that he wasn’t staying up late to serve the church, he was serving his family or someone else.  He did this nearly seven days a week.  He looked so tired much of the time, but Paul loved God with all his strength.  His life was a challenge to me to love God more in this way.

Why do people like these love God so much?  Why do they pour out their lives for him?  I’ll tell you why.  They have learned:  Life isn’t about me, it’s about God.